


Situational Awareness

by brodinsons (aeon_entwined)



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Poor Life Choices, Sparring, The Author Regrets Nothing, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 11:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15533754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeon_entwined/pseuds/brodinsons
Summary: It’s been a while since that whole thing where they tried to kill each other. Clark tries not to think about it too much.





	Situational Awareness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



> This is my gift in the [DCEU Fanworks Exchange ](https://dceu-exchange.dreamwidth.org/)! I got assigned to [linndechir](https://linndechir.dreamwidth.org) for this event and their prompt post/letter gave me too many ideas! I had to pare things down and figure out something that could work as some light enjoyable fare. Hope you like it, Linn!
> 
> For those of you just joining the party: this is a post- _Justice League_ fic, so that means it's taking place after Clark's resurrection and once the team has sort of settled into a rhythm. Lois and Clark have parted ways and I deliberately left it up to the audience to decide how and when that occurred. If that's not to your tastes, feel free to hit the back button. No hard feelings!

“You don’t _have_ a form, Clark. You brawl. Messily. It cost you Metropolis during the Black Zero event, and it could’ve cost you even more if Chernobyl had gone south.”

Clark’s jaw tightens as Bruce keeps talking, seemingly oblivious to the rising tension in the room. Cave. Whatever the hell he calls this place. Clark can’t remember him actually _using_ a specific term for it. It just...is what it is. The Cave.

“-and the _ice breath_? Is that what that was? You haven’t used it since. Was that part of your powerset before or is that something new?”

The distant sound of graphite shattering abruptly brings him back to earth and Clark exhales in a rush, glancing down at the falling shards of the batarang prototype he’d picked up as his cheeks flush with embarrassment. He’s better with his strength than this. He doesn’t even have the excuse of being recently resurrected, either. Bruce is just so damn _frustrating_ sometimes.

Speaking of Bruce, he’s getting that squinty side-eye something fierce.

There’s the squinty side-eye, there’s the blank clinical onceovers, there’s the intent stares from under the cowl that Clark honestly doesn’t know what to do with at the best of times, and there’s the equally intent stares when they’re in civvies. Bruce looks at him _a lot_. Clark’s starting to put together a list of all the variants.

Ever since he came back in the middle of the world ending _again_ , Clark’s found himself walking a bizarre tightrope comprised of trying to learn and predict Bruce’s moods. He didn’t really have much of a choice about joining the newly-formed team of metahumans—not that he would’ve said no, but not having any say in being jarringly brought back to life kind of soured their initial meetings—and being part of the team means he doesn’t have much choice about spending a decent amount of face time with Bruce. 

It’s been a while since that whole thing where they tried to kill each other. Clark tries not to think about it too much. Their encounters usually vary between stiff politeness on both sides and a confusing intensity on Bruce’s end that Clark would almost call _infatuation_ if he weren’t relatively sure Bruce still hates him. Or distrusts him. Or something along those lines. He doesn’t hate Bruce. He’s tried to be open and as welcoming as he can manage. It’s just difficult when the other party is about as emotionally available as a concrete wall. Until he’s very abruptly _not_ and Clark gets those occasional moments of seeing Bruce’s emotions running startlingly hot just beneath the surface.

There’s no infatuation right now, but the intensity is there and Clark can very nearly hear the cogs turning in Bruce’s head. He’s formulating a plan of some kind.

“We need the mats,” Bruce says, rolling the diagrams he’d been holding up and tossing them on the nearby table in an uncharacteristic display of casual messiness. 

“The mats?” Bemusement colors Clark’s tone.

Bruce gives him a look, then starts _taking his shirt off_. Clark very nearly chokes on his own tongue.

“You need more training than brawling with the occasional extraterrestrial threat can provide. You also need to learn how to dial it back if you aren’t dealing with someone with your same powerset,” Bruce strips his button down off as he walks in the direction of the in-house gym, revealing swathes of scars and pockmarked flesh across the broad span of his back that Clark can’t help staring after. “Better to just get it over with than keep procrastinating until we both pay for it.”

“Bruce, I don’t-” Clark swallows at his gut churns unpleasantly, the sense memory of a fragile human jaw creaking under the pressure of his grip flaring to the front of his mind. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Bruce looks up from where he’s wrapping his hands and wrists, offering what could only be described as a pointed expression.

“I could...hurt you,” Clark says, haltingly. “Shouldn’t I ask Diana about this? She might have time…”

Bruce just rolls his eyes and slams his palms together, sending up a tiny plume of chalk dust. “Kent, you lived here for _three decades_ without hurting a goddamn fly. The point here isn’t about how strong you are. It’s about how you can _manipulate_ all that strength, mold it to your advantage in any combat scenario.”

Clark swallows, watching a small bead of sweat tracking down the column of Bruce’s throat and suddenly finding that his mouth feels like it’s dry as the Sahara. Jesus, maybe the infatuation thing isn’t as one-sided as he’d gotten around to thinking.

“Cape off, farmboy,” Bruce makes a sharp gesture at him. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Clark detaches the cape from the clasps on his suit, letting it pool in a puddle of fabric on the floor that he steps away from. Then, he puts one foot on the mats and gets himself into what he vaguely recalls is a boxer’s stance: fists held up around his jaw and feet planted about shoulder width apart as he faces Bruce.

“Alright,” Bruce snorts audibly, and Clark can tell he’s trying not to smirk. “Now hit me.”

Clark blinks. “But don’t… _actually_ hit you, right?”

“Hit me, Kent.”

Clark scowls. He hasn’t forgotten about the unintentionally destroyed batarang, but Bruce sure is doing a good job of distracting him with _different things_ to be frustrated by. He steps forward and takes a swing in the direction of Bruce’s head.

It all happens fast enough that he doesn’t even have time to reflexively push back against gravity to float off the ground. Something hard hits the backs of his knees and the next thing he knows he’s staring up at Bruce’s expectant face with his back on the cool surface of the mats.

“Lesson one: situational awareness,” Bruce says, almost primly. “You can’t get so focused on landing a punch that you forget where the rest of your opponent is.”

Clark growls, but he lets Bruce take his hand and haul him to his feet. 

“Different punch. Try a cross this time,” Bruce suggests, moving to start circling him around the mats.

It takes a few moments to get his bearings and figure out the best angle of attack, but this time when Clark lets a right cross fly, he sees Bruce’s leg coming and easily sidesteps it. Bruce makes a satisfied noise.

“Good. Better than last time. Try it again.”

Clark tries it again, this time with a left cross. He sidesteps Bruce’s leg but unfortunately turns too late to avoid getting smacked across the ear with Bruce’s palm.

“Situational awareness,” Bruce repeats, holding both hands up to give Clark the _bring it_ fingers.

They trade jabs and punches around the mats, circling and baiting each other as Clark tries to absorb the progressive lessons that Bruce is trying to teach him. He’s not as successful as someone inherently talented at hand-to-hand might be, since his stumbles set them back a few paces and force Bruce to reset whatever the current lesson is covering. But he isn’t an abject failure either, so at least he can take some comfort in the fact that he isn’t a hopeless case.

Clark manages to get in several hits, though he has to concentrate on every part of the punch so he only hits with as much force as Bruce can handle. He gets the feeling that Bruce would like the hits to be _harder_ —if the somewhat disappointed expressions following careful hits are anything to go by—but Clark doesn’t have it in himself to go that route.

He does have it in himself to watch the droplets of sweat collecting above Bruce’s collarbones and spilling down his pecs as he moves, however. Getting to see Bruce stripped down and moving like this is something else. Even as he’s heading towards fifty, he’s still in his physical prime and manages to beat his body into enviable shape with seemingly little effort. Getting a front row seat to all the ways he’s physically bigger than Clark is just an added bonus.

A little over an hour later and Bruce is dripping sweat, whereas Clark knows they’d have to be inside the inferno at Chernobyl or the Cave would have to be saturated in aerosolized Kryptonite for him to start showing signs of physical exertion. 

“You know,” he says, putting a little growl into the words since Bruce is keeping at him like a dog on a bone and he’s starting to get a little keyed up. “If you wanted to flirt with me, you could’ve just done it like a normal person. Instead of whatever the hell this is.”

Bruce doesn’t even bother responding to that, which Clark expected, but the next time he gives a left hook a try, Bruce steps into it, grabs his arm, and sends them both crashing onto the mats hard enough to make even him gasp to get his breath back.

Once they’re down, Bruce is on him: straddling his legs and pinning his arms down even in spite of the futility of the gesture.

Clark stares at him and Bruce stares back. Nobody says anything. Bruce doesn’t seem...caught out, really. Maybe he figured he’d been a little too obvious so there’s nothing he can say that would mitigate the damage that’s already been done. Clark is starting to get used to the way Bruce thinks about everything in terms of battle stratagems: risk, reward, collateral damage.

“The world needs Superman,” Bruce says finally, still staring right at him. “Whatever the hell I want has no bearing on that.”

Wow.

There it is.

It’s been months, sure, but Clark had honestly started thinking that they’d just fall into a never ending cycle of baiting each other with no hope for resolution. 

But no. Bruce really just came out and admitted he’s been flirting. Or something. Attempting to flirt, maybe. Clark still hasn’t quite figured out how to quantify the shift between wanting to murder someone and apparently wanting to fuck them, but there’ve probably been stranger events through the course of human history. It’s just a little surreal that it’s happening to him, even taking into account the fact that he’s an alien from another planet who’s become a _superhero_ on this one.

“Lo said something once,” he says, catching the barely-there flinch as Bruce probably considers getting up and off him. “About not knowing if it was possible for us to love each other while I’m...being me.”

He lets that settle for a while, and if nothing else, at least Bruce doesn’t seem as ready to jump off him at the slightest provocation.

“It’s not about what the world needs, Bruce,” Clark finally manages to make eye contact with him once they’ve both digested his initial comment. “I mean, the world is important, yeah. I’d like to protect the world. But things you want matter too. So do things I want.”

He breathes a little easier, having said it. It might sound selfish, considering some people think he should be out there performing miracles every hour of every day. But even he can’t pull that off. He may not be human, but he lives like one and the world knows now that the _Superman_ isn’t infallible. Isn’t indestructible. He has limits and he needs to be able to make some choices for himself, instead of taking the rest of the world into account every waking minute.

He stares up at Bruce, watching a kaleidoscope of complicated expressions working their way across his features. 

“I already failed you once. I had the chance to fix it and I took it. I can’t count on miracles happening twice.”

Clark huffs a laugh. He has a thing or two to say about his resurrection being qualified as a _miracle_ , but he can leave that for later. He has a feeling they’ll be doing quite a bit of talking later.

“You’re not _failing me_ , Bruce, come on. I’m not a- jesus, I’m not a god or whatever it is people thought. I’d never want to be. That’s not what this is about.”

Bruce looks intensely skeptical about that particular claim, so Clark decides that he needs to show Bruce just how _ungodlike_ he is. He’s as human as anybody, save for the flying and the heat vision and the bulletproof skin. That’s the whole point.

Clark cheats a bit, pushing against gravity’s hold so he can flip them over and land hard with Bruce sprawled out underneath him. 

He actually is beautiful, Clark can’t help but notice all over again. The height, the breadth of his shoulders, the ridiculously sculpted musculature down his torso and limbs, the sharp jawline, the lashes of silver through the dark hair at the temples, the incongruity of the soft hazel of Bruce’s eyes contrasted against the savagery of the rest of him. You’re getting paid by the hour, not the purple prose word count, Kent, he can almost hear Perry’s voice in his head.. 

“Just gonna ogle, are you?” Bruce comments, a bit testy.

Clark smiles, relaxing a little once he realizes Bruce is as nervous as he is.

“I mean, I _could_ ,” Clark offers, leaning back onto his knees to give himself a better view and let him release Bruce’s arms. “I could also be doing something more productive. If you’d like.”

“Planning on getting undressed?” Bruce arches an eyebrow.

Clark doesn’t bother responding, and instead drags his thumb down the edge of the gilded crest emblazoned across his chest. In response to the physical command, his suit peels apart down the center; the small geometric shapes of it tesselating away and into itself until the alien fabric slides from his legs onto the floor. 

He hadn’t worn his usual briefs since there hadn’t been any crisis requiring his attention today, so the demonstration becomes a bit of a larger gesture than he’d planned, but there’s nothing for it. Clark breathes slowly and waits for Bruce to make the next move.

Bruce stares up at him, hazel eyes rounded in surprise. Clark can smell the sweat on his skin combined with the thickening scent of arousal beginning to bleed off him in waves. Then, before Clark can even think to react, Bruce has grabbed him by the backs of his thighs and hauled him up in order to swallow his cock almost to the root.

He can’t even get the breath to yell, so Clark settles for moaning loud enough for it to echo off the Cave’s walls.

While he gulps air, Clark fumbles to grab hold of Bruce’s hair, grounding himself while he tries to keep his balance on his folded legs and avoid letting too much of his weight fall onto Bruce’s face. But Bruce really doesn’t seem to mind anything he’s doing. He’s utterly engrossed in the task at hand: fingertips dug into Clark’s flanks while he slurps and swallows around the rigid length of Clark’s cock.

Clark isn’t sure if the tingling racing over his bare skin is a new sensation altogether, or just synapses resetting themselves after having been offline the whole time he was six feet under. He honestly doesn’t really care. Bruce’s mouth feels _obscene_ in ways he can’t even properly describe. He fists both hands in Bruce’s thick hair and groans again when he looks down to see his cock disappearing between steadily reddening lips.

It’s not just the act itself that’s driving Clark all the way up the wall, it’s the _intensity_ that Bruce is bringing to bear. He’s almost desperate with it, clutching at Clark’s thighs and refusing to take so much as a breath while he’s got his mouth full of cock.

Clark moans again, then scrabbles frantically at Bruce’s scalp.

“Bruce- _Bruce, I’m gonna-_ ”

He actually does try to lift himself out and up, but Bruce absolutely refuses to let him move even an inch. He grabs hold of Clark’s thighs and shoves him back down the second he makes to lift himself up. As the tip of his cock pushes down the back of Bruce’s throat, Clark loses the faltering hold on his control and shudders through the beginnings of his orgasm.

He moans Bruce’s name, twisting and jerking as he empties himself down Bruce’s throat. He even tries to pull back once he knows he’s nearing the end, but Bruce still refuses to let him go. He grunts around the dick stuffed in his mouth, eyes screwed shut as he milks Clark dry with nothing but his lips, tongue, and the convulsive clench of his throat.

“Jesus Christ,” Clark gasps, collapsing off Bruce to sprawl on the mats next to him. His muscles are still twitching; synapses firing at random while his body resettles from the peak of orgasm.

There’s a low chuckle from where Clark assumes Bruce’s head is, so he rolls his neck and squints over at him. “What’s funny?”

Bruce keeps chuckling, and Clark really shouldn’t find the gravelly post-sex quality of his voice as attractive as he does. Clark scowls, feeling his ears flushing with heat.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you curse,” Bruce says, once the chuckling fades into steady amused breaths.

Clark huffs, though his lips curl into a smile in spite of himself. “Just haven’t been around me enough, that’s all.”

Bruce seems to mull that over to himself for a bit, then Clark hears the faint sound of hairs scraping against the surface of the mats as someone moves their head. He glances over to find Bruce staring directly at him.

“That something you’d be interested in?” Bruce asks, voice still a rough octave lower than usual. “Me being around you more often?”

Oh.

Well, that is something, isn’t it.

“...yeah,” Clark says after a few contemplative moments, staring right back at Bruce. “Yeah, I think it is.”


End file.
